Friday, March 02, 2018

Street View Paintings

Ten years after Street View first appeared on Google Maps it is a little surprising that 360 degree panoramic art hasn't become a huge new artistic medium. Perhaps with the spread of more accessible VR headsets it is finally time to celebrate the great Street View artists of the 21st Century.

For example there is Julien Gauthier with his wonderful biopunk inspired BANGKOKXXIII - 360 Street. This 360 degree panoramic painting depicts a scene inspired by Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl. As you rotate around the panoramic image an Asian street scene looms over your point of view, with towering skyscrapers, an overgrown overpass and even a gigantic elephant.

The Grand Master of Street View art has to be Raúl Moyado Sandoval. Raúl has been creating panoramic paintings since 2013. Back in 2013 Raúl used the Google Maps API's Custom Street View feature to create immersive 360 degree landscape paintings.

Mobile Cyclorama has moved on from the Google Maps API. Raúl now creates 360 degree panoramic images which can be viewed using a VR headset, on a mobile device or on a desktop computer. There are six paintings to view in total. Mobile Cyclorama also includes a brief overview of the history of panoramic paintings, which actually date back to the 18th century.